Page 76 of Wham Line
“Now,” Larry said, “what are we going to do with you?”
“You’re going to walk out of this room,” Bobby said, “and you’re going to get in your car and drive as fast as you can and try to get away from here.If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll make it across the border.”
Larry nodded as though that all made perfect sense, but then he said, “I don’t think so.That music is pretty loud, and this gun doesn’t make all that much noise.I think it’ll be the culmination of a tragic series of events.A certain local snoop will have gone to the Rock On Inn to confront Mal’s true killer.The killer will be dangerous when cornered.And then, after shooting the local snoop and the snoop’s boyfriend, he’ll kill his little girlfriend and himself.And that will be the end of the story.”
Down the hall, Cheri-Ann’s vacuum came to life with a muffled roar—honestly, it sounded like a jet engine.God bless her, I thought with horrified wonder.She’s so desperate for the next hot bit of gossip that she’s pretending to vacuum.(Although how she expected to hear us over the World’s Loudest Vacuum, patent pending, I had no idea.) Maybe she’d be a witness when Larry killed us.Maybe she’d call the sheriff.
“That won’t work,” Bobby said.
“I guess I’ll find out,” Larry said.“You won’t be around to see, though.”
Panic crystallized my thoughts.I wasn’t going to die here in this historical mashup of a hotel.I certainly wasn’t going to diestanding.(The horror.) And I wasn’t going to let Bobby die either.I did a quick scan of the room, looking for some way out of this—anything.I could knock over the lamps, create a distraction.But I wasn’t standing close to them, and Larry would probably shoot me before I had a chance.I could pull Bobby down to the floor, and we could hide behind the bed, but that would only buy us a few seconds, and that left Nalini and Jethro to be Larry’s first victims.The best thing to do in a situation like this was attack, but I was too far from Larry.Then my eyes fell on the dresser, and the knick-knacks posed atop it: a truly hideous seahorse with crystal eyes; a rhinestone turtle; an enameled toad riding a skateboard.
The sound of the vacuum grew louder as Cheri-Ann worked her way toward us.
Larry’s lips were parted.His fingers flexed around the grip of the gun.
It had to be now.
As I readied myself to grab one of the trinkets, though, the door opened.And Indira stepped into the room.
I had a single moment when I thought she might do something—jump on Larry, or smash him on the back of the head.But if that was her plan, she was too slow.Larry spun around, swinging the gun toward her.I could see his face in profile.He stared, the tension in his face slackening for a moment.
“Indira, run—” I tried.
But she pushed the door shut behind her.
Larry gave a roller-coaster laugh.“What are you doing here?”
“Stopping you,” Indira said.
Out in the hall, the vacuum bumped a baseboard.It whined as it caught something—a snag in the carpet, maybe.Cheri-Ann thumped it around a few times.
Nobody moved.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Larry said.“Don’t tell meyoucare what happened to Mal.Not after everything he put you through.”
“Of course I care about what happened to Mal,” Indira said.Her voice was calm and even, but she had her hands clenched at her sides, and she held herself like she was made out of barbed wire.“He was a human being.No matter what he’d done, you didn’t have the right to kill him.”
“I didn’t have the right?Ididn’t?”That roller-coaster laugh rose and fell again.“You’ve got to be kidding me.Mal took everything from you.He ruined your life.And he did it to so many other people—he did it to Paisleigh.I loved her, and he killed her!”Larry pressed his free hand to his back without seeming to realize it.“He did it to Sparkie, he did it to this kid—”
“He didn’t ruin my life!”Jethro shouted.
“—and he would have done it to Talmage.”Larry waved the gun at Indira, but Indira simply clenched her fists tighter and stared back at him.“Don’t give me that moral high ground act.You hated him as much as I did.”
Cheri-Ann’s vacuum bumped along in the hallway outside.I had this vision of her opening the door “Just to check on you, dear,” and vacuuming around us while Larry pumped us full of lead.
God, she’d be dining out on that story for ayear.
“I did hate him,” Indira said.“I hated him for a long time.And for even longer, I grieved.I hid inside that grief.And I let that grief isolate me, because I thought it would be easier to be alone with my hurt.And I’m sorry, Larry.I’m sorry for what you lost.I’m sorry that you’re still carrying that hurt.And I’m so sorry that you were alone with it for so long.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry.”
“Do you know what I learned?”Indira asked.“What I learned is that being alone doesn’t make it any easier to grieve.It doesn’t make your pain sacred.All it does is make you lonely.But I’m not alone anymore, Larry.And I’m not going to let you hurt my friends.”
For a moment, he stared at her as though the words hadn’t made sense.And then a sneer hooked his lip.He made a sound that might have been a laugh.And then he gestured with the gun for Indira to join the rest of us.“Nice speech.Unfortunately, I’m the one with the gun.They took yours, remember?Get over there.”
Indira looked at me, and for a moment, our eyes met.
